Twins Describe Dousing Fire On Pilot Following Crash

Fire department recruits Cordell and Quintrell Curtis were among the first on the scene of a fatal Bolingbrook plane crash. Kim Vatis reports. (Published Thursday, Sept. 26, 2013)

Officials with the National Transportation Safety Board say the pilot involved a suburban Chicago plane crash Wednesday may have aborted his landing because he didn't have enough runway.

At a news conference Thursday evening, an NTSB official said Dr. Narayan Venguswamy touched down at Bolingbrook's Clow International Airport and then went back up in the air at low altitude, turned left and then crashed in a Chase Bank parking lot.

Sources who've seen the video of the landing tell NBC 5 that the pilot touched down past the halfway mark of the runway and was moving too fast.

Venguswamy, a longtime surgeon from Georgetown Ky. known as Dr. Vengu, died Thursday, hours after being hospitalized with severe burns. His wife, Jay Venguswamy, was pronounced dead shortly after the crash.

NTSB officials say there's no black box on a plane like this and they aren't sure if a parachute was deployed

The plane struck a tree, a light pole and several vehicles at about 5:15 p.m. Wednesday.

Witnesses described hearing a loud noise and explosion when the plane, a Cirrus SR20 manufactured in 2004, struck the ground at 262 S. Weber Rd.

"The plane came from right to left and it was flying so fast it clipped the light pole and right away it turned, fell and then exploded," said George Steimer, owner of nearby WineStyles.

Several smaller explosions followed, witnesses said.

"I heard a loud 'boom' and I thought the sky was burning," Arby Rivera said. "I thought one of the cars blew up, but witnesses told me it was actually a plane."

According to Mike Grohar, who works at a store next to the bank, Dr. Venguswamy emerged quickly from the wreckage.

"The pilot was getting out of the plane and was on fire and went down to the ground and two gentleman came over and put him out with their jackets and we got him to roll away from the plane, and as he was rolling away, asked us if we could find his wife, that his wife was still in there," Grohar said. "He was pretty bad but he was talking before the paramedics got there, we kept talking to him and tried to keep him coherent."

Dr. Venguswamy had been a surgeon at Georgetown Community Hospital in Georgetown, Ky., for 27 years, officials there said.

He was taken to to Adventist Bolingbrook Hospital in critical condition immediately after the crash and later transported via helicopter to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood.

"Our prayers go out to the family," pilot Arzania Williams said. "We know they are devastated. We hate to see stuff like this happen."